The Catholic Counter-Reformation

Point 113. The vengeance of the uprooteded

Economic liberalism places money and man, Having and Need, in a direct relationship without any need for mediation. It thus creates a collaboration, not of communitarian exchange, as it would seem, but of servitude, coupling the natural flow of the production of goods for consumption to the profit flow of money lent and repaid with usury. The whole of liberal economic science is the organisation of this parasitical addition of the capitalist flow to the economic flow, all for the purpose of its own maximum profit.

1. It was foreseeable that those exploited by the system, the proletariat of the 19th century, the third world of the 20th and 21th centuries, should become aware of this perfect trickery in order to pay back in kind. It is the fight for wages and welfare benefits; it is the takeover of the oil and raw materials production apparatus in order to attempt to control their prices and monopolise resources; it is the increase in the price of petrol and raw materials... There comes a time when everyone is equally good at the game, equally devoid of scruples, and also just as exclusively focused on making a profit as is the capitalist class.

2. The outcome may be dramatic. Capitalist cynicism flaunts itself shamelessly: money rules and dominates everything. It will provoke the vengeance of those who are duped by it, and it will incite the revolt of its slaves. It will be enough for them to denounce the hypocrisy of the system and overturn it to shouts of Freedom or in the name of Islam’s superiority, through an uprising of the human masses or by force of arms. General strikes, revolutions, insurrections in the suburbs, terrorism, dictatorships, nationalisation of foreign goods.

3. Faced with these “ exogenous shocks ”, neo-capitalism imagines that it can translate them into “ collective costs ”, and that a price can be paid to bring them under control. In vain. To struggle against ideas and armed revolution requires a “ supplement of soul ”, a spirit of military heroism, a civic sense, a solidarity – all forces and virtues that have been killed by liberalism. These non-market values, so-called “ externalities ”… because they are external to the market, neo-capitalism dreams of “ internalising ” them and promoting their rebirth with money. It will pay for more children to be born, for military honour, for prayers in Church, for the construction of Mosques, for submission to the law, for social generosity!

Capitalism ends by finding itself caught between an enemy that is not for sale and its need for vital and spiritual resources that cannot be bought on any market. It must then resort to politicians and soldiers; it must come to terms with them or else founder in fire and blood.